Well, I don't know about other series', but it's really hurting AC. There's little time between games to actually develop them to a proper, finished state. Everyone involved are rushed, things gets overlooked and it's all just so they can say they have a game on the shelf by Christmas shopping time. They need to give it all a rest. Oddly enough, releasing a game every year is hurting them for different reasons too. There's backlash against companies that milk their franchises so much like EA and Ubisoft and such. Now while that has little effect on such popular casual gamer franchises like CoD or EA and 2K sports titles, it greatly hinders a series like AC that relies so much more on a fanbase rooted in the dedicated gamer community. Unity got destroyed in reviews and aggregate rating sites. No matter what they did to fix it the fans revolted against it in major fashion.

They really need to hit the next one out of the park and deliver on all fronts. They can't afford another Unity with this series or they'll slip into the same obscurity as Prince of Persia.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

Look at the Batman Arkham franchise. There were a couple of years between Asylum and Arkham city and it gave the team time to develop properly and it allowed the hype and anticipation of the game to grow and swell. And now people are really looking forward to Arkham Knight because of the time and development between it and City. Heck Rocksteady delayed the games release (which was originally suppose to come out in October near Halloween) so that they could get it as good as they possibly could.

Heck, look at the time between Nintendo releases. Nintendo at least tries to get things right in their franchises, granted they are all Mario, Pokémon, Zelda, and Kirby, but they do try their hardest to get them as right as they can.

That is something the Creed staff really needs to do. I hope they actually take this year off at least to listen to the reviews and soak in why Unity wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. Really they could take this year and next year off and really hit a grand slam with whatever the next game is to be released. To bide the time, they could re-release some of the older games on PS4 like AC II, Brotherhood, and Revelations.

Exactly, Nintendo have the right of it. Look at how long the latest Smash Bros. game was in development. Or Mario Kart 8. There's a new Zelda supposedly coming along, but they're not even talking release date yet and the last new Zelda was Skyward Sword. (Hyrule Warriors was developed by an outside company, the same one that made Dynasty Warriors.) I think Unity's reception if nothing else taught Ubisoft that. They learned from that. This time last year there were news stories dropping hints of Unity's setting and location, this year, nada.

I mean, right alongside Unity (and Rogue) Bioware released Dragon Age: Inquisition. A game they were working on for YEARS (think about how long it had been since DA2 came out, which was 2011, for instance) and it scored near perfect ratings. Unity and Rogue alike didn't do nearly so well in ratings or sales.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

Playing Rogue again, thus far it feels like a healthy mix of Assassin's Creed III and IV, taking the best of both worlds and centered between both time periods in the mid 1700's. (During the Seven Years' War period from 54-63) They drive this idea home early when you meet characters from both games. I liked how they connected both worlds without just falling back on the Kenway line. (Edward is almost twenty years dead by the games start and Connor wouldn't yet be born anyhow, so it's just ol' dickwad Haytham mucking about anyhow.) I also couldn't help but smile when I look at the map and realised that right smack dab in the middle of it is an old 18th century map of Newfoundland. Can't wait to explore the coast of the island and see what's there to see. On a side note, my home town and most of the others around it were long settled by this point in history, so it'll be interesting to see if any of them are represented here.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

No one wants another Duke Nukem long delay. I also don't think anyone wants another Duke Nukem game, but that's a whole different story.

Found "St. John's" though to say it looks anything like the capital city of the Island is a stretch. Granted, it wasn't a city back then as such, but it also isn't situated so openly on the Atlantic. They could have at least made the Narrows and thrown a few cannons up there. Still though, neat to see my home province represented in some fashion. My home town and the others near it aren't represented either, but the stretch of land where they should be is there, so that's neat.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

When playing Rogue, don't be fooled, there is no place called Pearl Island off Newfoundland's coast. Also, the birds found upon it are not penguins (only found in the Southern hemisphere at any rate) but Urias, or murres as we call them here in Newfoundland: Turrs.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

One of the most annoying things about AC games Post-Ezio's engine is that in missions the secondary objectives don't always show up during the mission, making them incredibly easy to miss unless you take the time to pause between scenes to check the pause screen and make sure nothing new has been added.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

Nearing the end of AC Rogue, and I decided, with my ship fully upgraded, to go through the Legendary Ships. The first three were quite a bit of fun and were more or less giant battles with Man O' Wars at the center of it. The last one. MOTHERFUCKER. Way harder than anything the Black Flag Legendary battles came up with. It feels like the battle that never ends. I had to basically use a certain game mechanic as it's not intended to win and even then it took dozens of tries. Even with a fully upgraded ship that last legendary ship chews through your ship like tallow with both its broadside and mortar shots. It reminded me of fighting Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream in the original Punch-Out game. A drawn out battle of precise timing where one false move puts you damn near out of the fight.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

Finished Rogue. The ending sets up AC Unity in quite the surprising and shocking way. A few achievements and minor collectibles left that I could still get, a few locations in the Navy Campaign to see, but for the most part I've collected everything and gotten 100% sync in all missions.

As for the game itself, I thought it was an amalgamation and wrap-up of AC III and IV. It took place right between the two games and featured appearances by characters from both games. Most notable is the appearance of Haytham Kenway, the link between III and IV's protagonists (Edward Kenway's son and Connor Kenway's father). They tried to make the Templar's the protagonists here, but outside of Shay and his motives and the amiable, if misguided (in my books anyway) Christopher Gist, I thought they failed on that front. Haytham is still the biggest asshole around, even if the player character is working with him, he still comes off as a pompous, obnoxious douche. His father was twice the man he was. The only thing positive I can say about Haytham is that at least he's more fleshed out and well rounded than his son.

The other Templars they try to paint in a noble light, but Gist and Monro are the only ones who seem to have any redeeming qualities. The rest play the "We're trying to save the world from the Assassin's" card, but it's a thinly veiled "We want control of everything and everyone and every penny." Even the modern day Templars come across that way, especially that Otso Berg character. There's two types in the Templar group, either they put up the smokescreen of saving the world from the Assassin's, or they're buying into the lies of the first. It's a tangled, shitty web and they throw the player right into it as an unwilling participant.

The side quests were enjoyable, but they were cut and paste from AC IV for the most part. (Even the last legendary ship battle was similar to AC IV's most difficult.)

Story Rating: 7/10
Side quests rating: 6/10

Gameplay wise, it's an amalgamation once again. The best parts of both games with the shoddy parts of the engines trimmed down neatly. This has been the best game so far since the Ezio games in terms of free running. The least glitchiest of them all and very fluid. The fighting is identical to III and IV, if you liked those, Rogue will suit you just fine. That goes double for ship control. It's a duplicate of IV, right down to the feel of the ship. (Though I still say the Jackdaw is superior to the Morrigan, but I might be biased in that assessment).

Gameplay: 9/10

As for the Music, the shanties and tavern songs are cut a paste from AC IV, but they threw in a few more of each for good measure. The main theme is easily one of my favourite AC themes to date. I stop and listen to it every time before loading up the game. Outside of a few new compositions superimposed over the cut scenes, there's nothing to really stick out from AC IV.

Music/Sound rating: 6/10

Graphics: Identical to AC III and IV. It is set in the North Atlantic and St Lawrence Rivers, so its setting is similar to AC III, but it looks exactly the same as IV. Same non-VIP NPC's, same ships, same icons, same marine wildlife. The land animals are from AC III, some are new, like Polar Bears, but there's not a lot of change. It's familiar, I'll give it that.

Graphics: 7.5/10

Average rating overall: 7.1/10. Better than Unity, but just a touch too much retreading and a lacking storyline brought it below AC IV for me.

Ranking. Where would I put it among the other AC games? Well, going by the list I put up after rating Unity:

Right there. I enjoyed it more than Revelations, but not as much as Brotherhood. It plays just like Black Flag for the most part, but the reason it fell so low was because of the storyline. I just didn't connect with it and enjoy it as much as Black Flag, II or Brotherhood. It was nice to finally have a game featuring Newfoundland, but it was poorly represented. I get that they were basing it off maps at the time, but we now know those maps to be incorrect. It's not like the landmass shifted and changed based on cartography advancements. At the very least, they could have defined the Avalon and Burin peninsulas more and made St. John's actually look like St. John's.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

"My favourite spot is the one where I would pick him up for an aeroplane spin and rotate as many times as possible. He’d be so dizzy that he would try to pin the referee, and I’d count to three and he’d think that he won - Daniel Bryan

Just finished up Rogue. Man, what a game! It tied together the stories of Black Flag and AC: III pretty nicely.

To see how badly things went for Achilles, losing his wife and son and having all his students and oldest friend murdered by his traitorous former student, the man wasn't just beaten...his will and his body were broken. Its now clear how important Connor was. For the first time in ages Davenport had hope, something he thought was lost. Now him being that cranky ass old guy makes so much more sense.

And Shay, its still hard for me to think of a Templar as noble or as a hero, but man he is a fascinating character. His motives aren't off at all, its just seeing him destroy the Brotherhood, something we have grown attached to over the years, its pretty damn weird. Cudos to the AC team for getting me to at least qurstion how good the Assassins are and how evil the Templars are.

Overall this was a pretty enjoyable game, and a nice change of pace for the series. The modern tie in was pretty interesting as well with Berg being a very good, intimidating figure. Hope we see more twists like this in future titles.

My overall ranking of the main AC games:

1.Black Flag
2.AC: II
3.Brotherhood
4.Revelations
5.Rogue
6.AC: III
7.Unity (can move up once I can give it a full playthrough on my own console)
8.AC: I

Yep. The only thing I wish we could get is a finale for Connor's story. It feels like there is so much more they could tell and having played Rogue, I really want to know if he and Shay crossed paths as well. I need closure for Connor, he seems the only main Assassin that doest get it. Altiar, Ezio, and Edward all got good wrap ups for their stories and I feel Connor should as well.

Yeah, there was no wrap-up on his story. Odds are given that Shay was born in 1731 and we last hear of Connor in 1802 and no known encounters exist between those years, it's unlikely the two ever met. Keep in mind that Shay was given a task that took him far out of the North Atlantic by the time the American Revolution was taking place and it's not been revealed where he ended up afterwards.

As of April 1st, 2016,the first entry in my Gold & Steel fantasy series, As Fierce as Steel, is on sale. Visit www.thegoldandsteelsaga.com for more!

Just finished another play through of Assassin's Creed III. Where to start, while I still feel Connor as a character would benefit from another game, playing Rogue did change a couple things for me. First and probably most important is Achilles. Seeing what he went through in Rogue, having his wife and son die, losing all of his students (Shay turning Templar and then killing all the others), having his old friend Adewele get killed, seeing his Brotherhood get taken apart piece by piece, and finally being crippled robbing him of his career as an Assassin and preventing him from helping the reminders in other colonies. You can see why he was so bitter and hopeless when he first met Connor, everything he knew and loved was destroyed and Connor coming gave him something he thought he lost forever. Hope.

Second,boy is it fun to recruit Assassins. Those missions to get Stephan, Clipper, Duncan, Jacob, Dobby, and Jamie were fun and I wish there was some element of that in Blackflag or Rogue.

I wish the Aquila could've been used more. After playing Rogue and BF you appreciate the jou of the sea, from exploring new places, to hunting different animals, and hearing thise shanties. I understanf that the AC team haf just dipped their toes into that element of the game, so I'm not too broken up over them not being in the game.

The main issue that kept popping up is the interest factor of Connor Haythem, but to me this has changed a bit. Getting the background and seeing how he grew up, its now a little understandable how and why Haythem was so stuffy. He gotten taken in by the uptight Birch and never had the real chance to learn and bond with the burst of life that was Edward. And for Connor, not having his mother and then living and learning under a bitter old man would leave him a little light on intrigue and seeing how he lost his mom, its a little more understandable that he would be so focused in on Lee.